This takes place during 3B, so Emma and Henry have their memories back, but Snow hasn't gone into labor yet. Zelena was never a threat.
There was one part of motherhood Emma didn't particularly enjoy: helping-with-homework duty. That wasn't to say she didn't like it or enjoy the time spent with Henry, but how was she supposed to remember middle school math? She'd barely paid attention when she was supposed to be learning it, never mind retain it. So when her son had called her over to help find the area of an oblique triangle, she had to bite back a groan.
At first, it had been simple and easy enough. She looked up the formula, only to realize there wasn't a single right angle in the triangle to use as the height. She then tried his textbook, but that wasn't doing much in terms of explaining. It was times like those when she wished David and Mary Margaret wouldn't go out on so many damn dates so her mother could help Henry.
"Mom?" He piped up.
"Yeah?" She murmured absentmindedly as she flipped through the pages yet again.
"It's been an hour, and we're still on the same one. Maybe we should skip it."
"No!" It came out a little more forcefully than she'd intended, but Emma Swan wasn't one to give up, especially on her son's should-be-easy math homework. In fact, she sounded a little indignant, and that caused Henry to laugh.
"I know you're smart, Mom, but it's almost time for Modern Family and I really wanna watch it. Maybe we can just wait till Gramma gets home?" Right on cue, the front door opened and David and Mary Margaret strolled in, laughing about something. "Hey, Gramma, can you help with–"
"No, no, no, no, we'll get it." Emma shushed him, causing Snow to smile. As much as the pair were mother and son, they often behaved like siblings, causing Snow to want to meet her baby even more. She'd always wanted Emma to have brothers and sisters, but it hadn't turned out quite like she'd planned. "Can you guys DVR Modern Family for us?"
"Sure thing." David said as he walked over to give Emma a squeeze on the shoulder while Snow fiddled with the DVR. "Mind if we sit here with you guys?"
"Sure." The blonde shrugged and turned back to the textbook. As Snow settled onto a chair next to David, Emma yelled, "I got it!"
"You did?" Henry seemed just as excited.
"I mean, it's probably not the way you're supposed to do it, but it'll get you the right answer." She shrugged again. Did it really matter how he found the area of that damn triangle?
"I don't care, as long as I know how to do it."
"Wait…" Snow sat forward as a thought occurred to her. "If you two aren't going back to New York, why is he doing his homework?"
"To get his final grade for that class, he has to hand in all the assignments that'd been assigned thus far. It's a stupid rule, but I don't have any influence in New York like I do here, so rules are rules."
"It's good, though." The brunette said. "You're going to have to do it once you enroll here again, so you might as well learn it now."
"Well, he's not learning it the way his teachers would want him to, but I don't think it matters that much." With that, Emma closed the book and pushed it to the side. Curious, David opened it and began reading, just to see what Henry had previously been working on.
"How do you plan on doing it?" Snow asked, peering over Henry's shoulder.
"Trig."
"Like trigonometry?" Henry stifled a laugh; clearly, Snow wasn't entirely certain Emma knew what she was doing.
"Yes." Emma rolled her eyes. "You sound surprised."
"No, it's just… I never took you for a math person, or a school person at that."
"You're right about school." Emma smiled. "And to be honest, I never really liked math until my Junior year."
"What changed?" Henry asked. Snow was delighted when Emma seemed almost happy to answer him. New York had changed the both of them, and she couldn't help but think that maybe it was a change for the better.
"I had the best teacher I've ever had. Her name was Ms. Grappit and for all the teachers that ever tried to make me feel special, she was the only one who I truly believe actually cared. She was kinda crazy, you know? Really loud and she swore a lot and she didn't care what anybody thought of her. She was obsessed with clothes and shoes and her hair. It was funny."
"She sounds nice." Snow commented, offering her daughter a smile despite the fact that Emma was talking about a memory that was happy, but clearly a bad time in her life.
"She was." The blonde nodded, "I mean, she talked tough, but she did give a shit despite her proclamations that she didn't care. She'd give bonus points and stuff like that, and every time she'd say 'this is the last time'." The three of her family members hid snickers, causing her to narrow her eyes at them. "What?"
David pulled himself together enough to say, "Just sounds familiar is all." At that, Emma rolled her eyes and continued.
"I respected her, so I paid attention. That's how I remember any of this."
"I wish you'd respect us and pay attention when we have town meetings so you can offer your real-world insight. You're such a smart person, Emma, it's a shame you doodle the entire time."
"It's a shame Regina doesn't poof the pen out of her hand so she'll pay attention." David quipped.
"Ha ha, very funny." Emma rolled her eyes again as she redrew the triangle. The original one had too many erasures. "So Henry, I'm gonna show you some trig. You don't need to know why it works, just that it will work."
"Your triangle doesn't look like that one." Henry commented.
"I never claimed to be an artist."
"Clearly."
"Henry." She gave him a look and he put on his best adorable smile. "So, we're gonna draw a line down the middle to make two right angles… like this… and… this is really hard to explain." She put the pencil down and scratched her head.
"I wish I could help explain, but my degree only went up to sixth grade material since I was an elementary school teacher." Snow looked apologetic.
"Henry, do you mind if I just do this?" Normally, Emma didn't like to do things for Henry. She wanted him to be independent and able to solve his problems, but maybe she could make an exception. After all, she was supposed to be the fun parent.
"Nah, you can do this one. It's the last one, anyway." Henry leaned back in his chair. Emma's smile widened as she eagerly got to work. Snow and David happily watched her. They'd never seen Emma so happy within her own world. She was focused in a way they hadn't seen before, and she looked confident and relaxed. While it was weird to see, they were so happy that something brought joy to their baby girl's life. Within two minutes the problem was done, right answer and all.
"Wow, you really weren't kidding." Snow said. "I take back what I said earlier."
"Mrs. Vamenian should've shown us her work, not just the answer." Henry said, staring in astonishment at Emma's scrap paper. "Cause I'm never going to remember this. I don't even know how you did."
"I don't know, she was just really into math. It's weird. When you see somebody get that excited and fascinated by something, it's contagious. It also helps when they interject random stories to keep us from falling asleep. I had a teacher Sophomore year who was so boring. His voice was always monotone and I could never hear him. But she was a character, to say the least."
"You'll help me when I have to do this for real, right?" Henry asked.
"Of course." She turned to him and smiled. "I think we have just enough time to get our snacks ready before Modern Family."
"Mary Margaret and I are ready for our first episode." David said. "By the way you two talk about it, it sounds good."
"Really good." Henry nodded. "It's even better with ice cream."
"Your grandmother has had plenty stocked in there as of late." David threw a wink at his wife. Henry threw the freezer door open.
"Yes! Lots of chocolate!"
"Seriously?" Emma hopped off her chair and joined her son. "Chocolate brownie fudge. Oh. My. God. Stay pregnant as long as you want, okay?"
"Whatever you want, Sweetie." Emma was either too engrossed in her ice cream fantasy to comment, or was simply ignoring the pet name. Either way, Snow didn't care. She had her family and her home, and that was enough, even if her apartment got messy again due to the two scatterbugs.
"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm pretty sure you used magic on that one." Henry said, still dumbfounded at how she was able to solve the problem.
"No, I used the laws of sine, laws of cosine, and some basic trig. That's not magic, it's math." She paused as she pulled a spoon out of the drawer. "But you know what? Math can be magical, if you let it."
"I still think it's hard."
"I think you got your math genes from Regina."
"Was Dad good at math?" Henry asked quietly, almost afraid to bring Neal up.
"No." A sad smile graced Emma's face. "He wasn't. He didn't exactly have my world's education growing up."
"But you said you didn't pay attention." When Emma didn't reply, Snow smirked.
"You did pay attention." She removed her hands from her protruding belly and placed them on her hips. "You liked school, oh my God. Emma!" The woman was practically giddy, and David usually dealt with her when she was like that. The giddiness gave way to laughter as she took in Emma's deer-in-the-headlights look. David chuckled quietly in sympathy for his daughter.
"I liked it at the high school level, okay?" Emma said after a moment, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "I especially liked my Junior year math class. I got straight A's, which is surprising, I know, but I just liked it. Freshman year was the year I stood up to the bullies, so things got better and I realized it was okay to be smart."
"Wait, you were bullied?" Henry had dealt with it in New York a little bit better than in Storybrooke since he had the memories of growing up with Emma, who always told him to fight back, but he was nervous to go back to his real school.
"Until I fought for myself, yes." She sighed, hoping Henry's little Twenty Questions game would be over soon. "When you're an insecure middle schooler who's constantly starting at new schools every few months and don't have any friends, people find you an easy target until you get that target off your back. Didn't I tell you any of this in New York?"
"Nope." Henry shook his head as he put his tub of mint chocolate chip back in the freezer. "You taught me to never let people walk on me, from my fake memories, but you didn't really talk about yourself all that much."
"There's a reason for that." She grumbled, making her way to the couch so she could get the corner with the coffee table.
"I'm just saying, it's cool hearing your stories. I would've never guessed in a million years that you were bullied or that you enjoyed school."
"Yeah, well, you can't judge a book by its cover." Emma shot Snow a grateful smile as the brunette positioned herself on the other side of the couch instead of trying to sidle up next to her. She needed space if she was going to be interrogated.
"I'm glad you had something you liked, though." Snow said. "It makes me feel a little bit better about everything." As the LED readout on the TV read 8:30, Emma said,
"Now shush. The show's about to start and my ice cream's gonna melt." With that, the family turned their attention to the TV.